Attrition
by A Lily By Any Other Name
Summary: France warned him about her, but good advice tends to fall on deaf ears.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I'm writing a thing about the Vietnam War. Probably gonna be two-shot. Maybe a three-shot. Idk.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia**

* * *

 **Rochade  
A Lily By Any Other Name**

* * *

 _August 1964_

"You do not know what you are dealing with, Alfred."

America looks up at the Frenchman sitting in front of him in surprise. France never used the human name he had chosen for himself ages ago. No, no, it was always either America or _Amerique._ Never Alfred because that meant he wanted him to listen.

(The last time he'd called him Alfred was during the _war,_ right after they took back Normandy.)

"Where did that come from?" America raises an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"Tonkin *****."

Tonkin. Tonkin, Tonkin, Tonkin. The word- no, _the place-_ that had been on everyone's mind since August 7th. Tonkin. A gulf. The Gulf of Tonkin.

"What about it?" America asks.

France fixes him with a frown. "Don't play dumb, Alfred, because I know you aren't. _"_

"They attacked us." America shrugs. "They fired at our ships and we took defensive measures. That's it. I don't understand why you're so concerned."

(Because he is still butt-hurt over the defeat at Dien Bien Phu *****.)

"You're stationing troops over there." France says flatly. "In _her_ lands. You tell the world that you are not going to fight another war, but the world is not convinced."

(Her. Her. Her. Her. Who _is_ the woman that puts a bitter taste in France's mouth?)

"There's not going to be a war, France." America rolls his eyes. "We're just following through with the resolution ***** to stop the commies. That's the _real_ threat."

France simply shakes his head. America questions him with another raise of his eyebrow.

"What?" He prods. "Are you worried that there will be a repeat of Dien-"

" _Don't."_ France cuts him off sharply as if slicing through the memory. "Don't. Don't bring that up. That alone should be reason enough as to leave the matter be. You _really_ do not know what you're getting yourself into, Alfred."

"Vietnam is a third-world country." America chides. "And I mean, you were defeated, but when was the last time you won a war?"

France says nothing.

"Look, I appreciate the concern, France." America nods, hoping to be sincere. "But there's no need for it. Everything is under control. We're going to help the Vietnamese by getting rid of the communists. That's what the gulf incident proved to us."

France, still, remains silent. America frowns.

"Say something." He urges.

"You do not know what you're getting yourself into, Alfred." The Frenchman repeats before getting up from his seat and leaving the room. He locks the door of the study behind him.

America sighs and goes back over the reports sent in from Saigon.

* * *

 _March 1965_

The ground troops arrived like the lightning after thunder in a storm; their boots shook the ground from the very second they set foot on Vietnamese soil. Vietnam swore she could feel the rumbling of the Earth from miles away because she knew- _she knew_ \- the way her country seemed to sag beneath the weight of a foreign army. The Americans were loud, boisterous, and absolutely amazed with what they found themselves surrounded with; they were Alices falling, plummeting, into a rabbit hole located on the other side of the world. She should have found them amusing.

(But she didn't. She really, really, really didn't because first it was the French and now it was the Americans.)

Saigon had never stank of such corruption since her time as a colony, as _Indochine *****._

(That name was arsenic on her lips.)

But there was something about the American that made her both want to point a gun at his head and buy into his every word. No, not the _Americans,_ as in plural. _The_ American. The tall, blonde one with glasses and eyes like the sky, the one that was trying to convince her she wasn't going crazy even with all the opposing voices screaming in her head.

"I had a civil war, too, y'know." He says over the table as he clumsily picked up a noodle with his chopsticks. "It was terrible. I thought I was going insane because I heard screams from both sides."

He proceeds to tell her the uninteresting history of his civil war over their lunch of pho and spring rolls. Her own meal remains untouched because she can't bring herself to eat with the stench of napalm still burning in her nose.

(It seared through her as if her body itself were the emerald jungles of her country.)

"...But everything will be okay." America reassures her as if she had been listening the whole time. "Because the good guys always win."

The good guys? Who was good anymore? Who was bad? Vietnam began wondering if this naïve boy was the same country whom had brought Japan to his knees a mere twenty years ago. She remembers how the world held its breath after that day in August when the first bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. How could he think that the matter was so simple, that the world was so black and white? Was he forgetting that _he_ was the grey area no one liked to talk about?

(He's so young...)

"You'll be okay, Vietnam." He says after pushing his empty bowl away. "I'll be damned if I didn't keep that promise."

He reaches out over the table and offers her his hand. It's so much bigger than hers, but covered with the same amount of callouses and scars. She places her hand in his despite the protests ringing in her mind, despite the splitting headache spreading between her temples, but flinches when he gave it a soft squeeze.

His smile is as radiant as the glare from an explosion and his eyes are the blue of a sky without smoke.

* * *

Vietnam was not what he'd been expecting.

She wasn't exactly pretty. He didn't mean that in a derogatory way, but pretty, for him, connotes something delicate and dainty. A rosebud was _pretty_. A glass slipper was _pretty_.

But Vietnam was something else.

At first glance, her small, supple frame seemed lost in the military uniform she wore, but it really did suit her in a strange way. Maybe it was because America wasn't used to seeing women in service uniforms. Her skin was tan- not rice paste white- as if she spent her free time outdoors, and her eyes were small with flecks of gold buried in the rich brown. Her ink-colored hair was tied back in a no-nonsense pony tail that fell to the small of her back. She wasn't wearing lip stick or any sort of make-up for her lips were slightly chapped and her face bare. Her lips remained unsmiling and her eyes expresionless even as he shook her small, calloused hand.

No, she wasn't the China doll France had made her out to be long before Dien Bien Phu, or a geisha like the ones he'd seen in Japan. She wasn't pale like the moon, or radiant like the sun, or delicate like a rosebud. Hell, he couldn't even think of an object to compare her to. She was just... Vietnam.

(Just the third-world country whom humiliated the once-great France.)

The Frenchman's warning rang in the deepest part of his mind even as he sat down to eat lunch with her a couple of days after being introduced. She wasn't in uniform today. Rather, she was wearing a long green tunic that seemed to be made of silk. An _ao dai_ , she'd called it. The garment hugged her lithe figure as if to remind him that she was, indeed, a woman, but America was sure that wasn't her intention.

She did not smile once throughout the course of their lunch. Her stoic air made America squirm in his seat. Why wasn't she happy that he was here?

(France must have really broken her for her to be like this.)

Maybe her attitude would have discouraged a normal human being, but America was neither normal or human. He wanted to see her happy, he wanted to see her smile because everyone had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It said so in the Constitution written by the men that had fought for his freedom from Britain two hundred years ago. He was going to make sure she had that right, too, even if it was the last thing he did because it was his _job_ to help people. That's what heroes do, and heroes _always win._

(Better dead than red, as they say.)

* * *

 _January, 1968_  
 _Khe Sanh Combat Base *****_

The rifle in Vietnam's shaking hands threatens to fall to the ground as she aims it towards the NVA ***** soldiers advancing rapidly on the base. Cold sweat pours down her forehead, grime stains her face, and the grit in her eyes was making her vision go blurry. It is the third day of the seige at the base and the battle is mercilessly raging on. There hadn't been a lull in action yet and she doubted there would be one because the NVA knew they were slipping.

America is next to her. He lay on his stomach with a tight grip on the machine gun. One of his men steadily feeds more rounds into it. With each and every round fired, a soldier on the opposing front fell dead. She winces as she watches one hit the ground in a bloody heap.

(They were her people, too, and she's _killing_ them.)

Night is approaching. The pink-purple-orange-yellow sky was tinged black, and the smoke coming from the ground rose to meet the dawning stars in the twilight sky. She wants to sleep. She wants the siege to end so she can sleep till the end of this damned war. Exhaustion both physical and mental seeps through every pore and fiber of her being, and she just wants to _sleep._

War is not a new concept to her. She is much older than her western ally, and has bled more blood than he has throughout the centuries. The last war she fought in had been fairly easy to win... The French fled her lands with their tails between their legs after the final blow had been dealt. But this... This was different. That war had required no cooperation with foreigners, no thinly-veiled alliances, no loose handshakes and pursed lips. There had been no splitting headaches at Dien Bien Phu, no blurred vision, no shaking hands... Only the rush of adrenaline through her veins as she cocked her gun and aimed it towards that damned imperialist.

The M16 suddenly falls out of her hands as she lets out a pained cry. It was inaudible over the roar of an explosion triggered by a bomb. Her vision is going black, her body is drenched in cold sweat, and anguished screams that were not her own began tearing her mind apart. They were the same screams coming from the other side of the battlefield, but they're in her head, and she can't _stop hearing them._

(Make it stop, make it stop, make it _stop!)_

She hardly felt being plucked off the ground before the world collapsed in on itself and her vision turned as black as the sky.

* * *

America ignores the looks he receives from his men as he rushes into the medical tent with Vietnam in his arms. She went limp as soon as he started running bent and stooped to avoid the heavy fire aimed at him from the other side. Surprised to find an empty cot, he set her down with as much tact as he could manage. The groans and screams of the wounded assault his ears and send a painful pang straight through his heart. He looks down. The Asian nation was pale. Her chest hardly rose and fell.

(Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay...)

"Medic!" He screams, though it's useless because it's so loud and so hot and so _crazy_ in the medical tent that he doubts anyone heard him. "Medic!"

Nations couldn't die, right? They could get sick, they could get injured, but they couldn't die. Right? France has a scar on his neck from his revolution, Japan lived through Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

(Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay...)

Something like this happened to him nearly a century ago, during his civil war. The Union, the Confederacy... It was as if the warring sides each took one of his arms and decided to pull. The woman in the cot stirs. America lets go of the breath he'd been holding in, but notices the whimpers coming from her.

She is crying.

It's soft at first, but then crescendos into sobs that rack her small body. He takes a seat on the cot, and tries to soothe her by rubbing her back, but she jumps away from his touch.

"You're killing my people!" She manages between sobs. Her words are laced with despair and poison. " _I'm_ killing my people!"

She screams hysterically, but still refuses to let herself be touched. America breathed deeply, racking his brain to figure out how to calm her down before people got the wrong idea. Soft words would have no effect on her, and soothing physical contact was out of the question.

(He just wants to hold her till she calms down.)

"Lien." He says sternly, grabbing her by the shoulders. Her human name feels heavy on his tongue. The look on her face is enough to tighten his grip. "You need to calm down. The people attacking us are not your citizens."

"Yes, they are!" She insists desperately as she tries to wrestle herself out of his tight grasp. "I am Vietnam! They are my people, and they're being slaughtered as if their lives don't matter!"

"You're the South." He shakes her a bit. "They're soldiers from the North. They are _not_ your people. They're _communists._ They're the _enemy._ You trust me, don't you?

"No, they're not." She cries out, her voice cracking. "They're my citizens. And... And I was killing them-"

"Do you trust me?" He repeats.

She blinks and stops struggling against him. America doesn't know what more to say, but he finds there isn't a need for words when she slumps against him and cries brokenly into his shoulder. Her tears splatter wet against his torn and dirty uniform.

(Her hair is matted down with dust and debris from the siege, but running his fingers through the inky strands seems right.)

"I am the South." She mutters hollowly. He rubs circles into her back. "I am the South."

(Better dead than red.)

* * *

 **Historical Notes**

 **Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964):** The jump-off point of the Vietnam War. A U.S war ship clashed with a Vietnamese war ship in Vietnamese waters. Though the U.S had presence in Vietnam prior to the incident, this is escalation that led to increased military presence and fighting.

 **Dien Bien Phu (1954):** Final battle of the First Indochina War fought between France and what is now Vietnam. This was the first time a European power had lost to an Asian nation that utilized guerrilla warfare techniques. Needless to say, it was an embarrassing defeat for the French, but Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia won their independence at the end of the war.

 **Tonkin Resolution (1964):** Issued by American president Lyndon B. Johnson to authorize more military action in Vietnam as a measure to contain the communism in southeast Asia. Goes hand-in-hand with the Truman Doctrine issued at the start of the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism.

 **Indochina:** What used to be Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia prior to 1954. Used to be ruled by France.

 **Siege of Khe Sanh (1968):** A battle of the Vietnam war where North Vietnamese forces ambushed and surrounded an American and allied base near the border with Laos.

 **NVA:** North Vietnamese Army.

 **A/N: I have the headcanon that when countries go through a civil war, there's pretty much two minds in one body. Not exactly like a dissociative identity because it's not a different _person..._ But, yeah, basically two warring mindsets that both come out to play. Anyways, I hope I got most of this information correct. And also the characterization. Cold War! America for me is kinda like a deluded child- like, he genuinely believes that his government is right about everything, but also recognizes that he really just wants to get the best of Ivan and he'll do anything to win this morbid pissing contest they have going on. Also, I've seen fics where Vietnam, as the South, genuinely likes America, but I believe that any sort of positive sentiment towards him is thinly veiled because though the South is usually portrayed as being pro-American, the Vietnamese in general didn't exactly see the Americans as saviors (because they really weren't). But as mentioned before, I feel like America would do anything to feel superior to Ivan during this time period, and manipulating Vietnam- whom isn't exactly stable at the moment- to buy into everything he says is not above him. But that's just me. Plz review and favorite!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to everyone that reviewed and. This story is now called "attrition".**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.**

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 **Attrition  
A Lily By Any Other Name**

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March _1968_  
 _Hue, South Vietnam *****_

America tries hard to pretend this war isn't getting to his head. He tries hard not to flinch when he sees another one of his soldiers drop, tries hard not to cover his ears when the bombs are dropped. It's hard, he reflects, trying to keep your head above the water when everyone around you has already drowned. He sees this in his soldiers every day; their eyes are soulless and empty. Sad. Their hands shake as they try to write letters back home, and the stamps fall out of their hands as they try to stick them on the envelopes. Guilt gnaws at him because he knows he should have noticed it before, but they have to keep going. The harder they fight, the more fire they give, the sooner they can all go home as heroes.

(Because the Vietnamese are better off dead than red.)

He rides on helicopters with his soldiers, eats with his soldiers, shares every waking moment with his soldiers. They're tired. They want to go home. Most of them are boys that were pulled away from their homes by the draft. America wishes the situation hadn't come to that, but there's nothing he can do about it.

(Especially if his people back home keep turning into damn hippies.)

The screams of civilians still ring in his ears from earlier today. He is surrounded not only by the ruins of the once majestic city of Hue, but also by the voices of the dead. If he closes his eyes, he sees entire jungles go up in flames from just a drop of napalm, and fields of rice painted a fluorescent shade of orange from the herbicides *****. He sees the mangled, limp bodies of his boys lying face down in the glass-littered streets of Hue, sees the villagers of My Lai ***** blindfolded and on their knees with rifles pointed at their heads... Never let it be said that the personification of the United States of America was without a conscience.

(But they are better off dead than red.)

But they had to keep fighting as it would be the only way to win the war, the only way to stick it to that Soviet bastard. The Soviet Union thought he was all big and clever with all his territory and missiles, but the commie was dead wrong because righteous good always prevailed.

(And he had a bigger arsenal, anyways.)

Alfred isn't surprised as to why communism is a threat in Vietnam. The country is in too comfortable proximity to China and North Korea, and north of China was Russia, which was a part of the Soviet Union. The neighboring territories, too, were in immediate danger as well. Laos, Cambodia... Hell, the red could spread as far west as India, or as far east as the Philippines. There was no way of telling what would happen if he didn't stop the cancerous growth.

That's why he has to keep himself afloat.

(He can't let Soviet Union win this one because if he wins one, he wins them all.)

He can't let Vietnam- _Lien-_ be seduced by the empty promises of the Soviet Union. She is the _South,_ dammit, and she'll stay that way because she's more than his ally- she's his _friend._ Perhaps she doesn't recognize him as such, but he knows deep down that she knows he's only here to help her. He's here for her own good because friends help each other out when the going gets tough.

(And friends don't let friends become commie gooks.)

She'd been doing better as of recently. No more episodes of hysteria or confusion. He told her it would pass once it was clear which side was winning because that was what happened in his case. But she was still so distant. So sad. He wants nothing more than to see her smile. Perhaps she was a part of the reason why he wasn't giving up on the war just yet.

(He needs to save her.)

France's warning became muddled soon after meeting her. America understands now why she drove him out of her country- she wanted her _freedom._ She no longer wanted to be his China doll, the jewel of his empire. America liked to believe she never was. She's too clever, too headstrong, to have ever been France's play thing. He can't imagine her waiting on him hand and foot like he's seen his other ex-colonies do. All she ever wanted was her freedom, and being as headstrong as she was, that was what she got. Too bad that freedom was being threatened by the tide of red advancing from the north.

(And if she wants freedom, by God, he'll give it to her even if it means carpet bombing every inch of land he sees.)

But at the same time he understands why she was once the jewel of French Indochina. She carried herself in a way that commanded respect when dressed in uniform. Graceful dignity, he decides to call it. She's one hell of a leader, and any preconceived notions he had of her being shy dissipated once he saw the way she handled her troops and how her troops treated her.

(To him, that's more attractive than any pretty face.)

But there is also beauty in her simplicity. She isn't one for heavy make-up or extravagant clothing, but he knew she didn't need it because her eyes sparkle on their own and her uniform fit her as good as any dress.

(What he wouldn't give to see her again in an _ao dai,_ though.)

She is like a wild, thorny rose growing freely up a wrought-iron fence; her beauty is to be admired from afar and never clipped or cut.

(Unless you had a good pair of clippers.)

* * *

Three thousand dead.

Three thousand dead just in one city.

Her hands shake as she reads through the reports from Hue. Death, death, and more death... It was as if the reaper himself had made a home in her country. Three thousand civilians massacred ***** in the streets by the NVA, by the soldiers from the other side. Were they really her soldiers anymore? America was trying hard to convince her they weren't even her people. The other guys, he'd said, are _not_ yours. They're _communists._ The _enemy._ Just look at what they're doing to your country.

(But it was him. He was the one destroying her inside and out.)

She set the reports down and squeezes her eyes shut. The tears were already flowing freely down her face, but she doesn't bother to wipe them away. She doesn't know if she's crying from the physical pain inflicted by the napalm that ravaged her lands, or from the massive loss of life this war was turning out to be. She's seen his dead, too- young soldiers with torn and bloodied uniforms lying dead in the streets- and doesn't know how he can keep on fighting. How can he keep on sending his own troops like lambs to the slaughter? Does it not faze him to see the lives he's destroying with his arrogance?

(No, because he still thinks they're friends.)

Arrogance. That's what it is. A sensible person would have quit a long time ago. But America is not a sensible person. He will fight till his last breath if it warrants him a victory. She was like that, too, during the war with the French, but she doesn't care anymore. She doesn't care which side wins. She doesn't care which side loses. All she wants is for this to be over and for him to leave before he made everything worse.

(Her people call to her from both sides. Neither of them wanted this from the start.)

There's footsteps outside of her tent. She tenses and rushes to wipe her tears away before her visitor sees them.

America lets himself in without an invitation.

(She supposes his foreign policy is modeled after his own attitude.)

"Hey, Viet-" He greets, calling her by the nickname he had given her, but halts in his tracks at the sight of her. "Hey, are you okay?"

(No.)

"Yes." She nods tersely. "What do you want, America?"

"I'm just checking up with you." He says. "It's... Been a rough day to say the least."

She blinks. Quietly, she adds: "How many?"

"Dead or wounded?" He asks with a dark chuckle. He gestures to the chair next to hers. "Two hundred-something. May I sit?"

She nods again, but scoots away from him as he takes a seat. If he notices, he doesn't show it.

(She wants to ask him why he's here. No, not just in her tent, but in her country as well.)

He doesn't say anything for a while, and it makes her uncomfortable. A quiet America is never a good America because it means he's actually using his brain for once.

Then he speaks.

"I was at the medical tent." He says softly. She raises an eyebrow. "I was with one of my wounded. Young. A draftee. He asked he to write a letter to his mother telling her how bravely he fought. He died right after. Doctor told me it was from infection."

She doesn't really know what to say, but figures it unfair to remain silent when she's lived through the same scenario so many times.

"That's unfortunate." She says.

"It is." America nods. "But he's not the first and certainly won't be the last. How are yours holding up, Viet?"

(Wounded. Dying. Dead.)

"As well as you would expect." She replies. "There are four hundred caskets waiting to be shipped back to their respective villages."

(And three thousand more already in the ground. She supposes America can be right.)

He holds his tongue. She notices the sag of his shoulders. His uniform is looking bigger on him than it had three years ago.

"Can I ask you something?" He speaks up again. His blue eyes are boring deep into hers.

"I guess."

"What was it like to live under France?" He ventures. "How was he to you?"

She tenses. Why bring that up now?

"He bought me frilly dresses and expensive perfumes." She answers without much thought. "He liked to call me his lotus flower and give me jewelry. He liked to spoil me in an attempt to dominate me. Why are you curious?"

"I thought he treated you terribly." America admits.

"Well, he was a desperate imperialist." She shrugs. "That alone should tell you enough. Does he talk to you about me?"

(She honestly doesn't want to know.)

"He's terrified of you." There's a slight smile on his lips. "Can't even talk about Dien Bien Phu."

That makes her smile a bit. Her lips curve upwards ever slightly, but they fall to their usual flat position when she catches America staring at her. He doesn't flinch when she shoots him a glare. He laughs. It's infuriating yet leaves her confused.

"I've never seen you smile." He says. "I didn't think you had it in you."

She blushes, but doesn't know why. "There isn't much to smile about, America."

"There's always beauty in the world if you squint hard enough."

"That sounds like something France would say." She rolls her eyes.

"Ah, well, he did have a hand in raising me." He shrugs. "I picked up a thing or two."

(Like imperialism.)

There's a (un)comfortable silence. She starts to notice little things about him in their proximity. His nose has a slight bump in the middle and his glasses are gleaming clean. The cupid bow of his lips is a gentle, chapped arch. His eyes are still the vibrant blue they were three years ago. These minor details, the vignettes, have not been weather or worn from decades of prolonged war. She subconsciously reached up to touch her own face to feel the side effects of time beneath her finger tips. America studies her intently.

"I think you're really pretty." He says suddenly, out of the blue. His face is tinted pink in the dim lamplight, but there's a sincere smile on his lips. "Beautiful, actually."

She blinks dumbly and tries to process his words. Pretty. Beautiful. The last person whom had called her either was France.

(Francis. Francis, Francis, Francis. Nations usually didn't refer to each other by their human names.)

(But America had called her by her's at Khe Sanh. America had carried her away from the battle and stayed with her till her headache subsided and her tear ducts ran dry. America had called her _Lien_.)

"That was random." She finally responds, but her heart is beating oddly fast against her rib cage; it's not charged with adrenaline or fear- it is something totally different. It hadn't done that in a good decade or so.

"It's been on my mind." He admits. His face is still red. "I like you."

He... _Likes_ her? She isn't sure what that means because she's not sure of much these days. But the warm feeling bubbling inside of her makes her want to scream and cry and hit herself till the thought of him goes away. She doesn't need him _._ She doesn't _need_ anyone or anything but her freedom.

(And he's not that freedom.)

But his blue eyes are still boring into hers and his heel taps nervously against the ground as if expecting an answer. This is what she hates. This is what she despises. She hates how he's able to make her doubt her feelings. He does it in such a way that can only be described as passive aggressive- not exactly prying, but never dropping the matter, either- and she hates how it makes her act upon foreign thoughts. Deep down, she wants to believe he knows what he's doing to her, but then she glances into his eyes, and remembers how relatively innocent he is compared to the rest of them.

(Because two nuclear strikes later and he's _still_ young, but perhaps it is a different matter on the inside than on the outside.)

She hates how he makes her do things she never would have done under normal circumstances.

And that's how she came to kissing him.

She takes him by surprise, leaning towards him and pressing her lips against his. They're chapped and dry, but hers are definitely no better. He's sloppy yet much too eager, and his inexperience bleeds through when he accidentally bites her lower lip. He sighs through his nose and pulls away unexpectedly.

(She doesn't want him to, but she should.)

"Everything will be okay." He whispers against her lips as if she asked for reassurance. His eyes are closed behind his glasses. "I promise I'll protect you."

(I shouldn't want your protection...)

He leans in for a chaste kiss that leaves her more breathless than she'd like to admit. Blue eyes meet brown one last time before he leaves her presence. She tries to smile at him, but she's sure it looks more like a grimace than anything. Millions of butterflies are flying around inside of her, but they're making her sick with disgust at herself.

(She glances back at the reports still sitting on her desk, and the voices of three thousand dead scream in her ears.)

(Perhaps America is right.)

* * *

 **Historical Notes**

 **Battle Of Hue (1968): Part of the Tet Offensive (the North Vietnamese surprise military campaign against the South). Hue used to be the old capital of the country, and was an imperial city. This battle saw some of the heaviest urban combat of the entire war, and is compared to Fallujah during the Iraq War (2003-20?) because of unconventional battle field. Hue was a tactical victory for the U.S and the South, but a political victory for the North. It was also the turning point in the war due to the American domestic opposition that commenced in 1968.**

 **My Lai Massacre (1968): This was considered by U.S media as "the most shocking episode of the war". On March 16th, 1968, members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd Infantry Division went into the village of My Lai in South Vietnam with orders to kill all residents suspected to be affiliated with the Viet Cong. Between 300 to 500 civilians were brutalized and killed by U.S soldiers (women and children included). As a way to counter the Tet Offensive, American soldiers were ordered to go into these villages and kill anyone they suspected was VC. That was usually limited to military-aged males. Once word of the atrocities committed in My Lai got to the U.S, domestic opposition to the war surged. The perpetrators of this war crime were brought before a war tribunal, bot only one officer was found guilty and convicted.**

 **Agent Orange: A herbicide used in Operation Ranch Hand by the U.S. The purpose of this operation was to limit the food supply of the North Vietnamese by spraying their crops with a deadly herbicide called Agent Orange. Named for its bright orange color, Age Orange not only killed crops, but also animals and the ecosystems around it.**

 **Hue Massacre (1968): Prior to the Battle of Hue between U.S Marines and the NVA, the Northern forces massacred an approximated three thousand civilians in the city. By March, at least 5000 Vietnamese civilians were dead and the city was destroyed.**

 **A/N: I seriously wished we talked about all of this more in school, but, hey, biased America. This war is such a compelling and dark thing to talk about, but I don't think people should be uneducated about it. Thanks to everyone that followed! But please don't read or follow/favorite if you're not going to review! Plz!**


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